The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “Why did they stay so long in Quero?” he asks himself, his thumbs stuck in the buttonholes of his vest. He observes the sky as if the answer were in the clouds. Because they had a hard time getting the pack animals. These people here can’t rent out the animals they need for work just like that. No one wanted to rent, even though they were willing to pay top dollar. Finally they convinced the widow, doña Teofrasia Soto de Almaraz. By the way, what became of doña Teofrasia? There’s a murmur, some remarks in Quechua, and one of the women crosses herself. Ah, she died. In the bombing? So the guerrillas had been here after all. Damn. Had they gone already? Did many die? Why did they put doña Teofrasia’s son on trial?

  Thanks to don Eugenio’s marginal comments in Spanish during his conversation in Quechua with the townspeople, I begin sorting out the episode that obliquely reintroduces the present into Mayta’s story. The guerrillas were in Quero and had “meted out justice” to several people, doña Teofrasia’s son among them. But they had already gone their way, when a plane flew over the town, strafing the place. Among the victims was doña Teofrasia, who, when she heard the plane, had gone out to see what it looked like. She died in the doorway of the church.

  “What a sad way to go,” comments don Eugenio. She lived right down this street. Hunchbacked and a bit of a witch, according to local gossip. Well, it was she who accepted their offer after letting them plead with her. But her animals were out in the pasture, and it took her more than an hour to round them up. At the same time, they were held up by the food. I told you already, they were hungry, and they ordered lunch over at Gertrudis Sapollacu’s place—she had a little inn and rented rooms.

  “So they were sure of themselves.”

  “The police almost caught them with bowls of chicken soup in front of them,” don Eugenio agrees.

  The chronology is clear enough. Everyone agrees. An hour after things had calmed down, the busload of Civil Guards from Huancayo, commanded by a lieutenant named Silva and a corporal named Lituma, arrived at Jauja. They stopped briefly in the city to get a guide and to pick up Lieutenant Dongo and the guards under his command. The chase began immediately.

  “And how is it you went with them, sir,” I ask him point-blank, just to see if I can rattle him.

  The lieutenant tried to get him to stay in Quero. Mayta listed the reasons why he should come with them. They needed someone to act as bridge between the city and the country, especially now, after all that had happened. They had to set up auxiliary networks, recruit people, get information. He was the right man for the job. All the arguing was useless. Vallejos’s orders and Mayta’s entreaties were obliterated by the resolve of the diminutive lawyer. No, gentlemen, I’m no fool, I’m not going to wait around here for the police so I can pay the piper. He was going with them whether they liked it or not. The polite exchange of ideas turned into an altercation. The voices of Vallejos and the justice of the peace grew louder, and in the somber room reeking of grease and garlic, Mayta noticed that Condori, Zenón Gonzales, and the joeboys had stopped eating to listen. It was unwise to let the argument turn bitter. They had enough problems already, and there were too few of them for internal squabbles.

  “It’s not worthwhile arguing like this, comrades. If the doctor insists on coming, let him come.”

  He was afraid the lieutenant would contradict him, but Vallejos chose instead to eat his lunch. The justice did the same, and in a few minutes the air was clear. Vallejos had posted cadet commander Cordero Espinoza out on a hill to keep an eye on the road as they ate. The stop in Quero was growing longer, and as he nibbled smoked pieces of chicken, Mayta told himself it was foolish to be taking so long.

  “We really should be getting out of here.”

  Vallejos agreed, glancing at his watch, but he continued eating unhurriedly. Mayta knew inwardly that he was right. Yes, what a bother it was to stand up, to stretch your legs, limber up your muscles, run out to the hills, and walk—for how many hours? What if he fainted from mountain sickness? They’d put him on a mule, like a sack. It was ridiculous to be bothered by this illness. He felt as if mountain sickness were a luxury unacceptable in a revolutionary. But the physical discomfort was very real: shivers, headaches, a generalized lassitude. And, worst of all, that pounding in his chest.

  He was relieved to see that Vallejos and the justice of the peace were chatting animatedly. How to explain why the Ricrán people were scared off? Did they have a meeting yesterday to decide not to come? Did Shorty Ubilluz order them not to come? It would be an incredible coincidence for Ubilluz, the miners, and the Ricrán men all to have decided to back out independently, without talking to each other. Was this of any importance now, Mayta? Not the slightest. Later it would be, when history demanded a reckoning and established the truth. (But I, in this case, am history, and I know that things aren’t that simple, that time doesn’t always let the truth come out. About this specific matter, the last-minute absences, there is no way of knowing with absolute certainty whether the missing men deserted or if the protagonists went into action ahead of time, or if it all turned out to be the result of a misunderstanding about dates, days, and hours. And there is no way of setting the record straight, because even the actors don’t know the facts.)

  He swallowed the last mouthful and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. The semi-darkness in the room had at first hidden the flies, but now he could see them. They formed a constellation on the walls and ceiling, and they strolled arrogantly over the plates of food and the fingers of those eating. All the houses in Quero had to be like that: no light, no running water, no drainage, and no bath. Flies, lice, and a thousand other bugs must be part of the poor furniture, lords and masters of pots and pelts, of the rustic beds pushed up against the daub-and-wattle walls, of the faded images of the Virgin and of saints nailed to the doors. If they had to pee at night, they probably wouldn’t feel like getting up and going outside. They pee right here, next to the bed where they sleep and the stove where they cook. After all, the floor is just dirt, and dirt soaks up urine, leaving no trace. And the smell doesn’t matter much because it disappears, mixed in with the other smells, thickening the multiple smells of garbage and filth that make up the household atmosphere. And if at midnight they had to shit? Would they have enough energy to go out into the darkness and the cold, the wind and the rain? They’d shit right here, between the stove and the bed.

  As they walked in, the lady of the house, an old Indian woman all wrinkly and rheumy, with two long pigtails that bounced off her shoulders as she walked, put some cavies that had been walking loose in the room in a corner behind a trunk. Did the animals sleep with her, cuddled up against her old body in search of warmth? How many months, how many years had that lady been wearing those skirts she had on, which no doubt had grown old with her? How long had it been since she had washed herself from head to toe with soap? Months? Years? Had she ever done it in her entire life? The dizziness of the mountain sickness disappeared, replaced by sadness.

  Yes, Mayta, millions of Peruvians lived in this same grime, in this same abandonment, amid their own urine and excrement, without light or water, living the same vegetable life, the same animal routine, the same elemental existence that this woman was living. This woman with whom, despite his efforts, he hadn’t been able to exchange more than a few words, because she barely knew any Spanish. Just looking around here justified what they had done and what they were going to do, didn’t it? When Peruvians like this woman came to understand that they did have power, that all they had to do was become aware of it and use it, the whole pyramid of exploitation, servitude, and horror that was Peru would collapse like a rotten roof. When they understood that by rebelling they would finally begin to humanize their inhuman lives, the revolution would be unstoppable.

  “Get ready, we’re moving out,” said Vallejos, standing up. “Let’s load the rifles.”

  They all hustled out to the street. Mayta felt uplifted again as he passed from the darkness to the light. He went to he
lp the joeboys remove the rifles from the pickup and tie them on to the mules. In the plaza, the Indians went on buying and selling, uninterested in them.

  “They convinced me in the simplest way,” says don Eugenio, with a mournful expression, pitying his own credulity. “Lieutenant Vallejos explained to me that, besides training the boys, he was going to hand the Aína hacienda over to the Uchubamba commune. Remember, Condori was president of the commune, and Zenón Gonzales vice president. Why shouldn’t I believe him? There had been problems in Aína for months. The commune there had occupied the hacienda lands and claimed them, using colonial titles as their proof of ownership. Wasn’t the lieutenant a military authority in the province? I had to do my duty, I wasn’t a justice for nothing, you know. So, and mind you the hike was no laughing matter—I was around sixty at the time—I went with them willingly. Wasn’t it the natural thing to do?”

  You’d certainly say it was, to hear the naturalness with which he says it. The sun has come out. Don Eugenio’s face glows.

  “You must have been really surprised when the shooting began.”

  “You’d better believe it,” he says without hesitation. “It began just after we left, when we went into Huayjaco gulch.”

  He frowns—his eyelids wrinkle, his eyebrows bristle—and his eyes turn watery. It must be the effect of the glare. I can’t imagine the former justice of the peace weeping tears of nostalgia over what happened that afternoon. Although it may be that at his age, all his past life, even the most painful parts, arouses his nostalgia.

  “They were in such a hurry that I didn’t even have time to pack a bag,” he says softly. “I left dressed just the way you see me now, wearing a tie, a vest, and a cap. We started walking, and an hour, an hour and a half later, the fun began.”

  He laughs a little, and the people around us laugh as well. There six, four men and two women, all of them old. Sitting on the rusty railing that runs around the gazebo are several boys. I ask the adults if they were there when the police came. After looking at the justice out of the corner of their eye, as if asking his permission to speak, they say they were. I push on, turning to the oldest of the peasants: Tell me what happened, what took place after the revolutionaries left. He points to the corner of the plaza, where the road ends: That’s where the bus carrying the police came into town. It was smoking and backfiring. How many? A lot. How many would you say? About fifty, maybe. Spurred on by his example, the others also begin to speak and all at once start telling me what they remember. It’s hard for me to follow the thread in this labyrinth where Quechua mixes with Spanish, where the events of twenty-five years ago suddenly get confused with the air strike of a few days or weeks ago—when it took place, in fact, is also unclear—and with the guerrilla trials. In the minds of the peasants there is, naturally, an association that it’s cost me a lot of work to make and that very few of my compatriots see. What I finally establish is that the fifty or sixty policemen thought the rebels were hiding in Quero, so they spent about half an hour searching the town, going in and out of the tiny houses, asking everyone where the rebels were. Did they ask where the “revolutionaries” were? Did they call them communists? No, they didn’t use those names. They said thieves, rustlers, bandits. Are you sure?

  “Of course they’re sure,” says don Eugenio, speaking for all of them. “You have to remember that those were other times—who would ever have thought that was a revolution? Remember, too, that they robbed two banks before leaving Jauja …”

  He laughs, and the others laugh as well. In that half hour they were here, were there any incidents involving police and members of the community? No, none. The guards were convinced right then and there that the “rustlers” had gone and that the people of Quero had nothing to do with them and knew nothing about what had happened in Jauja. Other times, no doubt about it: then the police didn’t think that any man wearing a poncho and sandals was—until he proved otherwise—an accomplice of the subversives. The Andean world hadn’t yet been polarized to the degree it has today, when its inhabitants can only be either accomplices of the rebels or accomplices of the repressors of the rebels.

  “In the meantime,” says the justice of the peace, his eyes once again watery, “we were getting soaked to the skin.”

  The rain poured down fifteen minutes after they’d left Quero. A rain so heavy it sometimes seemed like hail. They considered looking for a place to stay dry until it let up, but there was no place. How the landscape has changed, Mayta said to himself. He was probably the only one not bothered by the cloudburst. The water poured off his skin, saturated his hair, ran between his lips, and felt like balm. At the point where the Quero farms ended, the land immediately began to curve upward. It was as if they had once again crossed into a different region or country, because this land had nothing whatever in common with the land between Jauja and Quero. The dense cinchonas, the pastures, the birds, the roar of the waterfalls, the wildflowers, and the reeds waving along the side of the road had all disappeared. On this bald slope, there wasn’t even a trace of a road, and the only vegetation was some giant, thick-armed, spiny cacti that looked like candelabra.

  The very earth had become black and hunchbacked, with huge, sinister-looking rocks and stones. They walked in three groups: the mules and arms in front, with Condori and three joeboys; then the rest of the boys, led by Zenón Gonzales, about a hundred yards behind; and finally the last group, the lieutenant, Mayta, and the justice of the peace. He also knew the way to Aína, in case they lost the others. But up to now Mayta was able to keep the other two groups in sight, up ahead, above, at the foot of the mountains, two spots that appeared and disappeared as the land rose or fell and the rain got lighter or heavier. It must have been the middle of the afternoon, although the grayness of the sky suggested nightfall. “What time is it?” he asked Vallejos. “Two-thirty.” When he heard that, Mayta remembered a joke the students at the Salesian School would make whenever someone asked the time. “I don’t know, my cock has stopped,” and they’d point to their fly. He smiled, and in that moment of distraction, he almost fell.

  “Carry your weapon with the barrel pointing down, so the rain doesn’t get in,” Vallejos said to him. The rain made the ground muddy, and Mayta tried to step from stone to stone, but the stones had loosened because of the rain, so he was constantly slipping. On the other hand, on his right side, the Quero lawyer—tiny, huddled over, his hat oozing water, his nose and mouth covered with a multicolored handkerchief, his ancient boots caked with mud—walked this mountain trail as if he were on a smooth sidewalk. Vallejos, too, walked easily, hunched forward a bit, his sub-machine gun on his shoulder, and his head down, so he could watch where he stepped. He led the way the whole time, and Mayta and don Eugenio would have to sprint from time to time to catch up to him. Since leaving Quero, they had barely spoken a word. The idea was to reach the pass called Viena, on the eastern slope, where it was milder. Condori and Zenón Gonzales thought it would be possible to get there before nightfall, if they hurried. It wasn’t advisable to camp out on the uplands because of the danger of snow or a storm.

  Although he was tired and still occasionally bothered by the altitude, Mayta felt fine. Were the Andes finally accepting him after tormenting him for so long? Had he received his baptism? Yet, a short time later, when Vallejos said they could take a rest, he dropped to the muddy ground, exhausted. The rain had stopped, the sky was clearing, and he could no longer see the other two groups. The three men were in a deep hollow, flanked by rock walls from which sprouted moist clumps of ichu grass. Vallejos came over, sat next to him, and asked to see his weapon. He looked it over carefully, moving the safety on and off. He returned it without saying a word, and lit a cigarette. The young man’s face was covered with drops of water, and, through the cigarette smoke, Mayta could see he was tense with worry.

  “You’re the one who’s always optimistic,” he said to him.

  “I’m still optimistic,” replied Vallejos, taking a drag and expell
ing smoke out his nose and mouth. “But …”

  “But you still can’t figure out what happened this morning,” said Mayta. “You’ve lost your political virginity, my friend. The revolution is more complicated than any fairy tale, brother.”

  “I don’t want to discuss what happened this morning,” Vallejos cut him off. “There are more important things to do now.”

  They heard a snore. The justice of the peace had settled down on his back on the ground, with his hat over his face, and appeared to have fallen asleep.

  Vallejos looked at his watch. “If I’m right, the guards should be getting to Jauja now. We’ve got about four hours on them. And out here in these badlands we’re like a needle in a haystack. We’re out of danger, I think. Okay, let’s wake up the justice and be on our way.”

  No sooner had he heard Vallejos’s last words than don Eugenio jumped to his feet. Instantly he clapped his soaking hat on his head. “Always ready, lieutenant,” he said, giving a military salute. “I’m an owl, I close only one eye when I sleep.”

  “I’m amazed you’re with us, doctor,” said Mayta. “At your age, and with all the work you have, you have good reasons to look out for yourself.”

  “Well, frankly, if someone had given me the word, I probably would have taken off,” the justice confessed, without the slightest embarrassment. “But they never said a word to me, they treated me like trash. So what else could I do? Wait for the police, so I could be the sacrificial lamb? What jerk would do that?”